Become a Presenting Ministry

The Process for Becoming a Presenting Ministry

Thank you for your interest in sharing your ministry with us. We are grateful for this opportunity to serve ministries like yours. The Barnabas Group Chicago seeks to provide the following to our ministries:

Relationships. Our quarterly meetings are rich opportunities for ministry teams to network and cultivate relationships with the marketplace and ministry professionals. We know there is such value in building connections and know that presenting ministries are blessed by these opportunities to share about their work, meet new faces, and carry relationships beyond TBG Chicago.

Real Time Thought-Partnership. During our quarterly meetings, ministries have the opportunity to pose a question for a team (ranging from 3-15 people) of TBG Chicago attendees to tackle during the meeting. This group will sit with each presenting ministry team to dive into a discussion aimed at posing viable answers and options to each ministry’s Big Question from their application.

Post Meeting Consulting and Engagement. At each meeting, presenting ministries will have the opportunity to share their three ASKS with the group. Each attendee will have the chance to commit to learning more about these opportunities for collaboration and consultation after the meetings. Post meeting, each ministry will have this contact information in order to follow up and move forward in the most strategic way with these interested partners.

Awareness and Prayer. We have seen over and over that there is ongoing value in the exposure that happens when a ministry presents. We will also share your prayer requests at our gatherings and know that there is power in prayer!

The Barnabas Group receives many requests from ministries to present in the 12-16 spots we have open during the year. We look for answers to the following questions from every ministry that might present to our group. Please take a look and then review our process:

Questions TBG Chicago Asks When A Ministry Applies:

Is the ministry Christ-centered?

Does the ministry have a strong leader and leadership team in place?

Does the ministry have a compelling mission and vision? What issue does it uniquely solve?

Can the ministry articulate a plan for the future? Is there evidence of goals, vison and desired long term impact?

Is the ministry financially sound?

Does the ministry have needs that TBG partners can meet? Are there specific requests for collaboration that are engaging and realistic? Are there clear deliverables with these asks?

Does the ministry have a "Big Question" that TBG can provide thought partnership on at our Quarterly Gatherings? Is this question engaging and worthy of discussion?

Our Application Process:

We strongly recommend ministry staff attend a TBG Chicago meeting prior to applying. We believe attending a meeting to understand how it works — timing of presentations, audio-visual, feedback forms, culture of the group, etc. enables ministries to maximize their opportunity to apply to present.

Ministries submit The Barnabas Group Ministry Application Form (Download a form here). While completing the application, please reach out to Mary Potter (mary.potter@barnabasgroup.org) with any questions and email your completed application to her as well.

After submission, TBG Chicago staff will review your application and reply with any clarifications needed.

All submitted applications will be reviewed by the TBG Selection Committee comprised of TBG Chicago staff, partners, and board members.

Ministries will be notified of the Selection Committee’s decision following the review.

Other Important Details:

We meet four times a year; quarterly we run two morning meetings over two days with the same content in two different Chicagoland locations. In addition, we have evening meetings from time to time where one or two ministries present. Our upcoming meeting dates are:

September 13th and 14th, 2017
December 12th and 13th, 2017
March 13th and 14th, 2018
June 5th and 6th, 2018
September 11th and 12th, 2018
December 11th and 12th, 2018

We try and have different ministries (kids, international, medical, etc.) on each meeting’s agenda so there is something for each attendee. We also look to ensure that there are diverse asks made by the different ministries.

We give priority to ministries that are introduced to us by Barnabas Group members and in which a Barnabas Group member is actively participating.